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Remember when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty promised a balanced federal budget at some point between 2015 and 2016? Last week, he announced that the government was moving that target.

We’ll have to wait until between 2016 and 2017 to get out of the $26 billion hole we’re in.

Flaherty blames falling commodity prices — not that those stopped Saskatchewan, where commodities are king, from balancing its budget this year.

Perhaps he should look at his government’s own record instead. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been in power for nearly six years. In the first five, federal spending went up 22% — almost a quarter. And when you look at the contents of Stephen Harper’s pork barrel, it’s easy to see how that happened.

Type “Harper government invests in” into Google. You’ll be surprised at how many press releases there are announcing spending programs that few would call high-priority:

Over $6,000 in federal funding for a filter at a public pool in Pangman, Sask.

Over $47,000 for paving stones, walkways, benches and bike racks at a community centre in Cortes Island, B.C.

Over $14,000 for a new HVAC system at a library in Castlegar, B.C.

$25,000 for a farming journal published 10 times a year, based in Nova Scotia.

$7,000 for new shelves at a library in Cape Mudge Village, B.C.

Over $21,000 for improvements to a soccer complex in Winnipeg.

And over $128,000 for upgrades to the civic centre in Merritt, B.C.

If we’re going to be spending federal money, shouldn’t we be spending it on federal priorities?

How does any one of the projects I just named “create jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity” for Canada the way these press releases say?

And the individual communities that benefit from these projects all sit in ridings represented by Conservatives — I’ll just let that speak for itself.

Of course, when questioned about how the federal budget has stayed unbalanced for so long, Harper and his cabinet ministers will blame things much larger than their pork-barrel schemes.

We can talk about the value of recession-era stimulus spending. We can talk about the need to reform the way we do health care and transfer payments in this country. This government has taken the easy road and said nothing at all about those things.

Granted, Harper never promised a radical overhaul of the Canadian health-care system, however many experts and everyday citizens demand it. He never promised to avoid stimulus spending entirely in the event of a recession.

But he did promise fiscal responsibility. He promised a balanced budget in 2015. And all of this pork is proof that he was making empty promises. Without Canadians demanding that he live up to his word, who knows what their next excuse for stalling will be?

Mr. Prime Minister, you told us you wouldn’t be as spendthrift as your Liberal and NDP counterparts.

That’s just one reason Canada gave you a majority government in 2011.

Since then, you’ve let us down. You’ve barely even tried not to let us down. When you tell us to wait just one more year for a balanced budget - why should we trust you?

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